


Death on Two Legs

by Syrum



Series: Flightless [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Body Horror, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Gore, Hurt, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Possessive Crowley, Protective Crowley, Psychological Torture, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-06-26 16:57:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19772500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrum/pseuds/Syrum
Summary: They had hoped that heaven and hell had, collectively, given up on them.They should have known it wasn't to be.When Aziraphale is snatched from the street, both angel and demon find out very quickly just how bad things can get.





	1. Taken

**Author's Note:**

> Before you get started let me warn you - this is probably not for the faint of heart.
> 
> Chapter two is the bad one, but it does very much get worse before it gets better.
> 
> Set after [Hammer to Fall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19758466), which you don't HAVE to read to follow this, but it does set the tone a bit.

So far as days went, it hadn’t been a particularly  _ bad _ day, per se. Fairly typical for a Thursday, really. The lunch rush had been and gone - an entire  _ three people’s _ worth, and Aziraphale had reluctantly had to part with a first edition copy of Jane Austen’s  _ Mansfield Park  _ for an admittedly fairly tidy sum - and the shop was pleasantly deserted again well before 3pm rolled around.

The official early close-time on a Thursday had been one of Crowley’s better ideas, so far as Aziraphale was concerned. The bookshop remained - mostly - open from the hours of ten in the morning until five at night all other days out of the week save for Sunday, Aziraphale’s own whims notwithstanding. However the slight adjustment to the sign in the window meant that one afternoon in every seven Aziraphale was free to wander Soho - and London in general - as he saw fit. This would typically involve visiting one of the many quaint little family-run cafes within walking distance, followed by a meander around the tiny, eclectic boutique stores. He rarely bought much, but a nice chat with the owners - who he knew by name at this point - was always enjoyable.

Occasionally, when their schedules lined up, he would forgo his usual habits entirely and spend the afternoon in the company of the demon he had only recently realised had somehow, at some point, become his best friend. Aziraphale didn’t get chance to see Crowley as often as he would have liked, though their time together had increased rather significantly since the whole end-of-the-world thing, considering they no longer needed to hide their knowing one another.

At one point it would have been  _ fraternising with the enemy _ . Aziraphale wasn’t certain quite when Crowley stopped being ‘the enemy’ and started being someone he genuinely adored, or even really whether the demon had ever actually  _ been _ ‘the enemy’ in his eyes. Now, though, the only side they were on was their own - which made the whole argument rather academic.

The sun vanished behind a dubious-looking grey cloud as Aziraphale shut up shop and, glancing up at the sky in admonishment for so much as hinting at poor weather that afternoon, he decided to risk it by leaving his umbrella behind. While he had found he was somewhat more limited in his miracle-producing abilities at present than usual, primarily due to the ongoing disagreement in which heaven had tried to have him murdered for averting the apocalypse. They hadn’t cut him off completely though, which Aziraphale took to mean that they didn’t  _ entirely _ hate him for what he had done.

Not that he expected to be forgiven any time soon.

Which of course meant that procuring an umbrella, a raincoat or both at the first spots of rain would be a simple enough task should he need them. It was always such a  _ faff _ , carrying something he didn’t need, and Aziraphale allowed himself that little indulgence.

The street was relatively sparsely populated, by London’s standards. Or even by Soho’s standards, though considering it was just after three in the latter half of the week, he supposed the vast majority of people would still be at work. The landlady from the pub two streets over waved at him from across the road as she hurried along in the opposite direction, and he returned the gesture with a beaming smile that she couldn’t hope to mirror. The wind had picked up, pushing through the blonde curls of his hair and making the weight at the end of his watch chain jingle against his waistcoat. It might have been a tad chilly, if he wasn’t mostly immune to the pinch of cold.

“Excuse me, sir - do you have a moment?” He had barely rounded the corner when he was accosted. The girl was barely shoulder height, with long black hair tied back in a high pony - sensible, considering the weather - and a clipboard. She must have been scarcely out of school, judging by the lack of lines on her heart-shaped face and the innocent hope in her dark eyes. Aziraphale dutifully paused as she levelled him with what was perhaps meant to be a pleading look over the top of her half-rimmed glasses, but instead came across as more stern. She would, he thought, likely make a good teacher or lawyer, with a look like that.

“Of course, how can I help?” Her lips quirked up in a relieved smile in response, and she pushed her glasses further up her nose from where they had begun to slide down.

“We’re doing some research on businesses in the area and general footfall.” She explained, turning her clipboard for a moment so that Aziraphale could briefly see the list of questions. “Would you have time to answer a few questions on proposed changes to the area? We have a few designs set up that we would like to get people’s opinion on.” She indicated somewhat vaguely to the building behind her, door standing open as though awaiting their arrival. “The whole thing shouldn’t take more than around ten to fifteen minutes of your afternoon.”

“Of course, I’m more than happy to help.” He agreed with a small flourish. It was a good sort of day, and his post-lunch pastry and hot chocolate could certainly wait for a few extra minutes. “Lead the way.” 

“Thank you, one of my colleagues will take over once we reach the office - this way, please.” Aziraphale followed a half pace behind as she lead him into the building and up a set of narrow stairs that looked, if he truly had to say so, as though they might shake apart at any moment. He wasn’t being snobbish, he  _ wasn’t _ \- but if not for the polite young lady on the stair ahead of him he would never have considered entering the place himself. Her hair swung behind her with each step, almost like a tail, oddly tangle-free considering the breeze out on the street.

The building itself was clearly old, as quite a few structures within certain parts of London were, and in desperate need of renovation to bring them up to the modern standard of living. The wallpaper was peeling, the carpet on the stair treads was thread-bare, and there was an odd smell of damp and decay that made him wrinkle his nose in displeasure. 

It was honestly surprising to him that the place hadn’t been snapped up by a developer yet, considering how adamant that lot seemed to be about getting their hands on  _ his _ shop.

Despite all of that, however, it was clearly inhabited; the hallways were lined periodically with dark wooden doors, most with a plaque or a decal of some sort advertising which small business had taken up residency within, and he could hear the vague murmurs of conversation in places as they passed.

“Right in here, sir.” His companion offered up another disarming smile as they reached the one door in the place that didn’t look as though it had been dragged kicking and screaming from the turn of the last century. Not that the upgrade was anything remotely resembling an improvement, however. The window - if it could truly be called that - was of a frosted plastic that only served to reaffirm just how little the thing must have actually cost, and the door handle when he reached out to turn it so he might step into the room left Aziraphale’s hand slightly sticky.

In hindsight, he should have suspected that all was not as it seemed.

A sweet-smelling cloth was pressed over his nose and mouth as something sharp jabbed him in the neck, hands gripping his arms tightly and, as he tried to lurch away from the assault, booted feet slammed into the backs of his knees. Aziraphale crashed to the tiled floor with a pained grunt, his vision starting to swim. His mind seemed to slow, and he was distantly aware of someone talking to him, or at him, yet the words slipped away before he could fully comprehend what was being said.

Something heavy slammed into the back of his head, and everything went terrifyingly dark.


	2. The Pit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The demon holding Aziraphale captive is a nasty piece of work, even by hell's standards - but he has information, and Aziraphale needs to work out how much of what he's being told is true.
> 
> And more importantly, if he's ready to believe it.
> 
> Though he needs to find a way to survive what his torturer has in store for him first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
> 
> Last chance to turn back! This is where the story earns the vast majority of those nasty little tags up there.
> 
> Still with me? Good! Please do enjoy.

It was bright, when Aziraphale finally came to. Too bright, and he winced as he tried to pull away from the invading light, the motion making his already aching head throb against his temple. Squinting against the glare, he tried as best he could to take in as much of his surroundings as possible - a task he managed with rather limited success, considering his view of the room around him consisted of a blank, white wall at an angle to his left, and a similar one - punctuated only by the inclusion of a door barely within his range of sight - to his right.

The air in that space was rank and stale, threatening a thousand years or more of solitary confinement and laced with the copper tang of blood from what he thought might have been a broken nose considering how his face ached. His neck twinged too, from the effort of having had to support the limp weight of his head for however long he had been unconscious. There was metal pressed along his front from shoulder to ankle, deliberately too short as it left his head hanging without any type of support.

How long had he been out for? Minutes? Hours? Considering the ease at which his assailants had managed to take him down - and the obvious conclusion from that being that they knew precisely who and what they were dealing with - it could even have been days.

Footsteps sounded behind him and Aziraphale tried to turn, to see who was in there with him, yet heavy straps held him in place on what seemed to be a purpose-built table. It kept him stationary at a decidedly uncomfortable and rather alarming downward-facing forty-five degree angle, and he tried to swallow down the rising concern. 

“Good mornin’ sleeping beauty.” Aziraphale tensed at the low drawl, masculine and unfamiliar. “Not that it’s particularly good fer  _ you _ , mind, though I’m sure it’s morning  _ somewhere _ .” A set of crocodile-skin cowboy boots appeared in his line of sight, attached to a wide pair of legs. Craning his head up and squinting against the glare of the overhead lights, he could just about make out an equally broad face with features that weren’t  _ quite _ right.

“Demon.” He hissed out, and the man laughed at the non-insult.

“ _ ‘Course _ .” Came the response, and a strong hand buried itself in his hair, holding but not pulling until he was eye-level with a slightly bloated belly covered with a stained plaid shirt. “I mean, it’s not like your lot’ll sully their perfect little hands on the likes of you now, is it?”

“What do you mean?” It was dangerous, baiting a demon - they were liars, the lot of them, yet something in Aziraphale went utterly cold at the stranger’s tone. Straining his eyes, he could still just about look up, see the vicious smirk that coloured an odd face topped by matted brown hair.

“Smart boy like you, m’sure you can figure it out.” The stranger’s grin widened,  _ sharp _ , and Aziraphale wanted nothing more than to pull away. This person, this  _ demon _ , was dangerous in a way he hadn’t seen before - everything in him screamed to get as far away as possible, he could taste it and smell it and he knew full well he was trembling.

“They won’t stand for this, you know. When they find out, upstairs, you’ll be in for it.” The demon huffed at that and Aziraphale couldn’t help his slight wince as a dark-nailed finger trailed over his cheek.

“Oh you poor, sweet, deluded thing.” The hand in his hair tightened, holding him firmly in place and Aziraphale suppressed a shudder as hot breath skimmed over his ear. “They aren’t coming for you.  _ No one _ is coming for you.”

“They will.” The tremor in his voice belied the lack of faith he had in his own words, and the demon simply laughed. “They wouldn’t leave me here.”

“Don’t you know? They’re the ones who  _ sent _ you here in the first place!” The laugh turned into a sharp cackle as the demon yanked his head back, forcing him to stare into a green-tinged face with a mouth that held far too many teeth and pale yellow eyes with bisected pupils. A used syringe appeared in his right hand, pinched between thumb and forefinger, held almost mockingly so that Aziraphale could see it. “A little gift from up above. An  _ insurance policy _ , to keep you docile, stop you from  _ smiting _ every one of us while you’re down here. Something your boss cooked up especially for you.”

“ _ No. _ ” He didn’t want to believe it,  _ couldn’t _ \- that Gabriel would have willingly agreed to something like this...or, worse, that the order came from even further up-

“Oh yes, little one.” The demon interrupted, with a slight shake of his fist where it was still buried in Aziraphale’s hair. “Ya know, I get the feeling that boss of yours don’t  _ like _ you very much.” The hand released, and Aziraphale let his head drop, sucking in the putrid air and trying not to panic. “Funny enough, that’s the  _ one _ thing that feather-fucker and me have in common -  _ I _ don’t like you much neither!” Another cackling laugh, as sharp nails dug without warning into an area behind Aziraphale’s shoulder blades, an area that  _ should _ have been hidden away in the  _ other place _ . He cried out, thrashing against the unforgiving restraints and wrenching his head around to look, to  _ see _ .

They were there, visible, and as solid as the rest of his form. From the corner of his eye Aziraphale could just barely see the endless pure white of his wings, stretched out behind him and held in place by bindings he couldn’t quite make out, feathers damaged and bent in places yet still as undeniably white as they had been the day he had been formed.

It was something of a relief, albeit a small one. He hadn’t started to Fall yet.

“You know, I shouldn’t hate ‘em, really.” The demon hummed, hands having moved to stroke over the soft feathers almost reverently. “I had ‘em too, once. Big, black things - miles more impressive than the ones that your prissy boyfriend’s got. You’d have got on your damn knees for mine.”

“What do you  _ want  _ from me?” Though he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, in truth. He had been taken against his will all to easily, no one knew where he was - including, rather terrifyingly, himself - and he really had no idea how he was going to get himself out of the mess he’d unwittingly gotten himself into.

Not without help, at least.

“Not much, really.” The hands moved away and he could hear his captor moving around, the clank of metal and the scrape of something sharp. “Bit late for that now.” He sighed, a note of regret in his tone that was as far from genuine as was possible. “We tried to make you fall, ya know - all it takes is the right person saying the right thing enough times and  _ oops! _ You’ve fallen. Just like the  _ rest _ of us.”

“What?” Aziraphale went entirely cold. Dark glasses hiding the amber eyes of a snake flitted across his mind and he was reminded of a honey-warm voice, of ankles tangled beneath restaurant tables, of six thousand years of something he couldn’t put a name to but which now felt icily close to  _ pursuit _ . 

“Oh yes, we sent a whole  _ heap _ of demons out to corrupt as many angels as we could! Why d’you think your lot were  _ still _ falling after the first?” One of the mechanisms holding Aziraphale’s left wing outstretched behind him clicked free and it was yanked around to the side, though he still could not move it for himself no matter what he tried. It was almost as though the muscles had been severed, switched off. “You’re a stubborn one, though. We  _ wanted _ you, and you weren’t having none of it! You would have been a duke at the very least, perhaps even a  _ prince _ , what with your abilities.”

“I don’t understand.” There was the tinny scrape of metal-against-tile, and Aziraphale could finally fully see his captor as the demon threw himself carelessly into a fold-out chair that had been pulled into view. He still had hold of Aziraphale’s wing, broad palms stroking over the soft feathers. A pleasurable shiver ran through the limb, coiling in his stomach and he had to swallow against the need to gag against the rising nausea.

“Crowley.” The demon replied, as though it were delightfully obvious. “That ridiculous fucktoy of yours. His  _ sole purpose _ was to bring us  _ you _ , complete with a nice new set of black feathers in place of these  _ repulsive  _ white ones you’re still wearing. And the idiot went and failed.”

“That isn’t true. It  _ can’t  _ be!” Fingers buried themselves into the shorter, downy feathers on the inside of Aziraphale’s wing and  _ yanked _ , a half handful ripped free and he couldn’t help the pained cry that erupted from his chest.

“Oh but it is, sweetheart.” The low croon made Aziraphale shudder away, straining again in vain to tug his wing free as the demon took his time plucking each of the primaries out one by one, earning little pained gasps with each new feather lost. “Did you actually think he  _ loved _ you?” The bark of a laugh was cruel and Aziraphale’s soft whimper was lost to the sound. “Oh you  _ did _ , didn’t you? Looks like he was doing a better job than I gave him credit for!”

“No.” Aziraphale let his head drop down, blinking away moisture gathering behind his eyes, though by that point he couldn’t be certain if it was the pain or the thought of Crowley which had caused the tears to threaten, unbidden. “ _ No. _ ”

“I’ll tell you as many times as it takes for you to believe it.” The demon seemed to grow bored, fingers digging into the flesh of the half-ruined wing, what feathers remained stained red in some spots. “And then,” that infernal grin was back, too wide and every colour of malicious. It was at that point Aziraphale noticed the hook, vicious and glinting and huge, oddly clean for an instrument of hell. The tip of it was pressed against the newly bared flesh beneath his wing joint and a bead of crimson trailed slowly down the metal before falling to the floor with an inaudible splash. The low cry that erupted from Aziraphale was one of true fear as he tried to pull away, tried desperately to break free from bonds that would not give even an inch. “Then, I think I’ll have him tell you himself.”

Aziraphale screamed. The sound of it echoed all the way down to the darkest depths of hell, drowning out the crunch of bone and tearing squelch of flesh as the sharp metal plunged into his wing. The limb twitched and fluttered, movement halted by the drug still coursing through his system as he wrenched against the bindings holding him down. Too-hot tears spilled from pain-scrunched eyes to flood over cheeks that had lost their colour entirely, and the remains of his earlier lunch spilled over the tiled floor as his chest heaved violently.

“Well aren’t you a loud one.” Laughter, mocking and cruel, seemed to curl around Aziraphale’s mind as he slumped in place. “If you can’t even handle that much...well, with what I’ve got planned for you I doubt you’ll be walking out of here in one piece.” There was the clank of chains and he whimpered as the abused wing was hoisted up, his chest lifted just barely from the metal table holding him down. It hurt,  _ burned _ , in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. Nothing should have been able to pierce his wings in that way, nothing should have been able to damage him to this extent.

He wanted to beg for it all to stop, to cry and plead, but words were lost to him in the moment. And he couldn't, he _couldn't_ \- he was one of heaven's soldiers, a warrior chosen by God, and he couldn't let himself disappoint Her. He wouldn't beg, _he wouldn't beg!_ There was a barely-there buzzing at the back of his thoughts, previously silent, and Aziraphale clung onto it like a lifeline. With his strength gone and his power subdued, it was his only possible method of escape, if only he could-

There was a sharp scrape against his neck, yet by that point he barely felt it over the screaming agony that was coursing through him. “Looked like it was wearing off.” The demon clarified, almost pleasantly, and Aziraphale felt the returning hum of his connection to the Host dim once again to blank silence, replaced with bitter despair. “Can’t have that now, can we?” His right wing was released, less carefully than the first, and it flopped to the floor once the straps were no longer there to restrain it. “You’re burning through this stuff faster than we thought you would. Shame, really, but never mind - I’ll just have to work faster, won’t I?”

This time there was no delay; the hook, the chains, and Aziraphale was fairly certain that he must have passed out, as the next thing he knew his captor was yanking him up by the hair again. “Know what this is, sweet thing?” The cleaver glittered as it was passed before his face, and Aziraphale struggled to focus on it. “I asked you a question.” The hand tightened, pulled, and Aziraphale couldn’t contain the pained whimper as the weight on the hooks embedded in his flesh increased. “I expect an  _ answer _ .”

“N-no.” He managed to gasp, throat overused and raw, aching as he tried to swallow against the rising bile.

“This is a blade forged in hellfire.  _ Lovely,  _ ain’t it?” Aziraphale wasn’t certain whether he was expected to answer that time as well, the possibility of choosing the wrong option sending a ripple of dread through him. Perhaps thankfully, the demon made his decision for him, releasing the vice-like grip on his hair and earning another whimper. “First of its kind. Damned hard to make, you know. Could turn the war for us if we had more of these, but it’s taken us  _ this _ long just to get this one.”

“Not that it matters.” He continued, boots squeaking against the blood now soaking the floor beneath Aziraphale’s prone form. “We’re on a cease-fire at the moment anyway, boss’ orders.” The demon’s movement stopped, and he might have tensed if not for the way his consciousness had again begun to waver. “Perfect chance to test it out on heaven’s little traitor, if you ask me.”

One of the hands was back again, stroking over the downy feathers near Aziraphale’s shoulder blades, petting them gently. This time he didn’t move - couldn’t, even if he wanted to, limp and unresponsive as he dragged down one shuddering breath after another.

“This is going to be  _ ever _ so much fun.” The demon actually giggled at that, and the hand was replaced by the slow drag of the blade over the shorter feathers near his shoulder blades. Deadly, the threat of pain to come, and it took a moment for Aziraphale to realise that the terrified whimpers he could hear were falling from his own lips. “ _ Scream _ for me, little angel.”


	3. Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just a normal Sunday really, no different from any other. Sure, Crowley hasn't seen Aziraphale for a couple of days, but that was perfectly normal for them.
> 
> Wasn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit later than I had hoped to post it, but I've been rather unwell, hence the delay.
> 
> Shall we find out what Crowley's up to? Yes, let's!

Sundays were, as they always had been, entirely dull and uninteresting. A ‘day of rest’ apparently - though humans were notoriously terrible at allowing their fellow man to actually rest. Still, hardly anything interesting ever happened on a Sunday; half of the shops didn’t bother opening at all, those that did were limited to six hours in the middle of the day, a good chunk of the population sequestered themselves away inside pokey little churches where Crowley couldn’t tempt them with something-or-other and the day as a whole had this general _holy_ air about it which was downright unpleasant to those of a more demonic nature.

That particular Sunday was no different; Crowley had rolled out of bed at around nine-ish, wandered through to the kitchen in his boxers to discover that he had no eggs and that the bacon had gone off, decided he couldn’t be bothered to waste the energy required in fixing both of those things and promptly crawled back into bed once more.

It wasn’t that Crowley actually _needed_ to sleep most of the time - he was a demon, they didn’t technically have to rest the way mortal creatures did - he slept for the simple fact that he _enjoyed_ the act and any excuse to get a few extra hours of shut-eye was, in his opinion, an entirely valid one.

Technically they didn’t need food either, but explaining that to Aziraphale the last time he went on what had been unjustifiably and rather ridiculously dubbed a ‘hunger strike’ had put him squarely on the receiving end of one of the angel’s infamous strops for almost two weeks. It had been easier at that point to just eat what he was given and put up with the fussing of his friend until the incident was forgotten. At some point, he had started to enjoy the simple pleasures of eating, and within a few short years it had become a habit he didn’t particularly want to break.

The sheets upon his bed - an ostentatious four-poster thing of a fairly modern design and no actual curtains - were of the softest cotton, their thread count a technical impossibility, but it was amazing what a tiny demonic miracle could do if you really put your mind to it. They were black, of course, because even within the confines of a room only Crowley himself was ever permitted to enter he had an image to uphold.

Well, if he was going to be overly pedantic about it, they were in reality a very dark grey; truly black sheets were so _tacky_.

And no one could ever rightfully accuse Crowley of being tacky. The fact that a fair few had tried was, in essence, irrelevant because they weren’t _right_ about it.

He had put entirely more effort into his sleeping arrangements than was perhaps strictly necessary, however it was worth taking into account that Crowley was not, and would never be, human. Just because his corporeal form’s appearance seemed to be _mostly_ human, didn’t mean that it actually _was_ . His serpentine heritage meant that he felt the cold rather more keenly than most the majority of the time. The only real exception to this being at the height of summer, when temperatures in the city of London would occasionally skyrocket to the mid thirties and the country as a whole would complain viciously for a few days, before the rain returned and they could go back to moaning about _that_ instead.

As a result, his duvet was a hefty goose down thirteen-point-five tog, and he refused point blank to swap it out for anything less. Not that he had to share it, so it wasn’t as though anyone was actually there to _complain_ about the temperature between the sheets, but that was entirely beside the point.

So, with a pleased sigh at the crisp slide of newly-changed sheets against his bare skin - yet another mini miracle; it wasn’t as though his lot had cared at his abusing his power before, so they certainly wouldn’t _now_ \- he slid back into bed and wriggled until he was entirely enveloped and as comfortable as possible.

Sleep wasn’t, he had to admit, the real end goal at that point - dozing for a few hours when he had absolutely nothing to be awake for was just as enjoyable, if not more so. He might have stayed there all day, in fact, if something resembling his version of hunger had not roused him around noon, and he had half a mind to call Aziraphale for a quaint little lunch date at the vegan place over in Kingston.

Crowley, of course, wasn’t vegan. Neither was Aziraphale, for that matter, but the food there was _exceptionally_ good.

The phone wedged between his ear and shoulder continued to ring as he pulled on fresh boxers and dug out one of his more flattering pairs of jeans. The dark denim had an oil-slick sheen to it, and it hugged his hips sinfully well, serving to fill at least some of his temptation quota while he was busy with other things.

After the incident with the end-of-the-world-that-wasn’t, Crowley hadn’t exactly been _welcome_ downstairs. From what he understood Aziraphale had been all but banned from heaven after their little trick with the body-swap, and neither angel nor demon were particularly bothered by that. Still, _his_ lot seemed adamant that Crowley still had a job to do and a quota to hit, while them-upstairs seemed far happier to simply pretend that neither he, nor his angelic conspirator-in-arms, actually existed. Which, in Crowley’s not-so-humble opinion, was probably the best outcome for everyone involved.

Because if he ever managed to get those feathered bastards alone with him in a room again, he’d do more than just breathe hellfire at them - he would fill the whole damned room with it and burn every one of them to ash.

“ _You have reached A.Z. Fell and Co. books and antiquities, please leave a message after the tone._ ” Aziraphale’s rather tinny answer machine message sounded down the line, and Crowley huffed out a curse that was more habit than irritation.

“Aziraphale, it’s me, got your head stuck in a book again?” He huffed, perching himself on the edge of his unmade bed so that he could pull on a pair of thick socks - his feet did have a terrible habit of getting _cold_. “Anyway, don’t bother calling me back, I’ll be over in maybe an hour. Lunch, my treat.” His phone beeped as Crowley absently tapped the red end call button, then bounced once as it was tossed on top of the rumpled quilt so that he could finish dressing.

The drive over to Soho wasn’t a particularly long one, but London traffic was _hellish_ on a good day, and rather worse at the weekend. A few minor miracles made the going a little easier - more suggestions that warped the fabric of space, really - but it was still a little after one thirty by the time he pulled up outside Aziraphale’s shop.

Crowley was a creature of habit. He always started his day with a mug of coffee so strong you could stand a spoon in it. He always walked on the road side of the pavement when out with Aziraphale so that the angel could peer into shop windows as they passed. And he always, _always_ parked in the same spot outside the book shop.

Anyone who has ever visited London - or any major city, for that matter - would understand that parking is at an absolute premium within the central areas. Soho, being particularly busy at all times, was no exception to this. However even taking this into account, there was always - without fail - a singular parking spot available for him on the road immediately outside the shop. Always the same spot, always the exact right size for his Bently, without fail.

Now, this wasn’t anything of Crowley’s doing - he might have done, if parking had been allowed to become an issue for him at all as the city grew progressively more congested over the years, but the spot had simply _always_ been miraculously free. Right from when he had driven a much newer Bentley over to A.Z. Fell and Co. for the very first time. Day or night, any day of the week, that same spot was always available for him.

An open invitation, if you will.

That afternoon, there was a Renault Zoe parked in his spot.

Crowley positively _seethed_ for a moment; his spot, _his_ , and it had been _stolen_ by a damned _electric car_ of all things? With a hiss of discontent, he let down the tires as he drove past and shortened the battery capacity by half. Hopefully, he thought to himself, they would run out of juice before the hapless driver was even half way home.

He found a space in the end, and it wasn’t _his_ space but at least it wasn’t too far out and the day was reasonably warm. The walk all the way back to collect Aziraphale took perhaps ten minutes, and by the time he arrived it was pushing two in the afternoon - far later than he had wanted to eat, but at least the restaurant would be a little quieter.

In hindsight, he should have simply miracled his space free rather than throwing a fit at the likely undeserving other car. Oh well, hindsight and all that.

The doors when he reached them were, of course, locked - the shop had never once opened on a Sunday, what with it being the aforementioned day of rest and all, and Aziraphale would take almost any excuse to bar potential customers from his space and his precious collection of books - but that was easily solved with a slight flick of his wrist.

“Afternoon, angel!” Crowley strode into the book shop with a flourish that would ordinarily have his friend rolling his eyes - and if he only did it to ensure he was on the receiving end of that soft, fond smile of mild exasperation, no one else needed to know. “Aziraphale?” The air in the shop was musty, weighed down by the scent of old books and leather, as though it hadn’t moved for a good long while.

Crowley’s steps seemed too loud in the almost cavern-like space, even the scrape of his shoes on the carpet too much and he realised after a moment that he hadn’t breathed since he last called out.

Another unnecessary function, breathing, but one that tended to get noticed if you didn’t actually _do_ it. So normally Crowley did, without actually thinking about it, but in that space at that moment he had simply...stopped. Dust floated in the still air, whirling near the door and behind him from his earlier entrance, but further into the shop the barely visible motes simply hung, suspended without motion.

Everything about the shop felt _wrong_. Had a human walked through it, they likely would have failed to notice that anything was amiss. Another demon wouldn’t know enough about how the shop should feel to be able to pinpoint a problem, and the same could probably be said for an angel.

Aziraphale wasn’t there, he knew that much. Even without ascending the stairs into the pokey little flat above the shop, more a glorified store room for further books than an actual living space, he knew that the angel was entirely absent. The shop was too cold, too _lifeless_ , and the last time he recalled it feeling even similar was when Aziraphale had taken a trip up to Glasgow for a week to visit an exhibition and hadn’t bothered to let Crowley know that he would be back a day later than planned.

The shop itself appeared to be as it always was; overly dim from too many tall shelves lined with more books than could comfortably fit, knee-high piles of those which _didn’t_ fit left scattered around the edges of the room, initially dark and foreboding until you grew used to it. Musty, as anywhere containing large numbers of antique papers is wont to be. Nothing was out of place, nothing was broken or disturbed, it was simply as though Aziraphale had stepped out some time before and failed to return.

Despite knowing what he would find up there - which was to say, nothing really of note - Crowley took the stairs up to his friend’s flat two at a time. It wasn’t haste which drove his slightly rapid pace, more impatience. The door opened to his hand and he stepped into the main living space, glancing around the room, searching for anything untoward. Finding nothing, the next room he tried was the bedroom - pristine and barely used, as expected, existing for appearance’s sake only - and then finally the kitchen.

At first glance, everything seemed to be as it should be. The marble worktop gleamed, chrome splash-back behind the cooker shining and well-polished, and with the exception of a small plate and a delicate teacup, everything was in its rightful place.

Except, there was a very thin film of dust covering everything - only slight, barely noticeable, and certainly not immediately visible to the human eye but it was _there_. The plate and teacup, however, were the most damning - crumbs remained on the plate from what might have been toast or a sandwich, while the cup contained the remnants of what was likely at one time a cup of tea brewed from the premium leaves Aziraphale favoured. At that point, however, it held a sizeable number of mould spores, gathered together in a white film on the top, emboldened by the presence of milk in the dregs.

Aziraphale could be rather absent-minded at times. It was possible - though not likely - that he had stepped away for a few days without thinking to inform Crowley that he wouldn’t be back immediately. It was even possible that he might have forgone placing a sign at the door to advise that the shop would remain closed for a few days due to a ‘business trip’ or something similar.

What was entirely impossible, beyond comprehension even, was the idea that he might willingly leave one of his favoured teacups to go mouldy.

It was entirely likely, in fact almost _probable_ , that something was wrong. Crowley had no idea as to what that something might _be_ , however. Tracking Aziraphale down, unless the angel really did _not_ want to be found, had never required overly much effort on his part. Crowley hadn’t really thought about it much over the centuries, but with the exception of a scant handful of examples - most more recently, as his presence had been barely _tolerated_ initially - each of their interactions had been preceded by a conscious decision on Crowley’s part that he wanted to see Aziraphale.

It was amazing what a focused demonic miracle could do. It had taken him from Siberia to Venice in a thought, from London to Paris on a whim, and each time would deposit him within reaching distance of the angel. It had taken some time for Crowley to really start to consider _why_ he kept up the chase. While Aziraphale may have been the only angel stationed on Earth, Crowley was far from being the only demon, and it would have been rather more simple and less strenuous to find someone more _like him_ to spend his time with if he was that desperate for companionship.

But he didn’t want companionship. He wanted _Aziraphale_ , and in that moment he poured all of that want and need and bubbling worry into a singular request to take him to wherever the angel had gone, or to bring Aziraphale back to him.

Nothing happened. He reached out again and still, nothing. He miracled a baby elephant into the room and then sent it back again, just to make certain no one had decided to put a cap on his power, then tried once more.

Crowley was still alone. Still surrounded by books and dust, rather than faced with the exasperated half-smile that meant Aziraphale thought he was being entirely ridiculous. Wherever the angel had ended up, he was far beyond Crowley’s reach, and that thought alone was enough to set him pacing through the small flat. He was _gone_ , who knows where, and there was absolutely nothing Crowley could do about it.

Which meant that all he could really do was sit, and wait, and hope that Aziraphale would eventually come home.


	4. Agares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has an unwanted visitor, and things get worse from there.

He wasn’t worried about Aziraphale - he  _ wasn’t _ _._ It wasn’t the first time they had been apart, and it hadn’t even been that  _ long _ really. So what if the angel hadn’t thought to tell Crowley he was going away for a while, or when he would be back? That wasn’t unusual, in the slightest, and a few oddities in behaviour didn’t necessarily change that.

Except, this was the first time he had been entirely unable to contact the angel, and Crowley was  _ terrified _ .

It was heaven’s doing, Crowley thought -  _ had _ to be. Aziraphale wasn’t helpless after all, humans wouldn’t stand a chance if he really didn’t  _ want _ to be stolen away, and any demon save for Lucifer himself would be lucky to get away with anything less than a good old-fashioned smiting.

Unless he had been discorporated again, and that  _ would _ be inconvenient. Thinking on it, the  _ last _ time he hadn’t been able to sense Aziraphale had been after his accidental discorporation, which made it a very real possibility. Upstairs wouldn’t be likely to hand out a replacement body any time soon, which meant either they would have to hope Adam still had enough juice as the destroyer-of-worlds to make a nice new one, or Crowley would have to brave the Downstairs and attempt to steal one.

Would an angel even be able to take control of a body from a fully demonic source? Could they, between them, even make it even  _ look _ like Aziraphale, if he did manage it? Sure, he had managed to switch bodies with Crowley for a time without any ill effects, but Crowley’s moral fibre had shifted into a decidedly grey area centuries ago so this was something else entirely. 

That was assuming those feathered bastards hadn’t tried the hellfire trick a second time. A chill ran through Crowley which had nothing at all to do with the time of year. If they had thought to give it a second go, that would mean they were working with hell, and that would  _ not _ be good.

Crowley was not, it had to be said, overly good at waiting patiently for much of anything. For a six-millennia-old being, he was really rather impatient. He managed until almost midnight, sitting on Aziraphale’s ratty old couch in his surprisingly comfortable living space, one heel tapping out a rhythm on the barely-carpeted floorboards. Had he remained there for much longer, in fact, it wouldn’t be entirely unsurprising for the heel of his boot to wear clean through the carpet to the floorboards below.

That was assuming the scrape of his nails against the faded gold-and-pink floral pattern - lovingly sewn into the fabric of the sofa some two hundred or so years earlier - didn’t wear through to the stuffing before then. He had already made a good start of it; there wasn’t a hole there yet as such, but it was getting close, and the tips of his fingers had gone numb from the repeated motion.

What else could he do? Driving around London wouldn’t do him much good, and he daren’t go any further afield lest Aziraphale return home and need him for something. He hoped that the ‘something’ in question wasn’t anything more than a glass of wine and a good chat over take out from whichever place was still open and serving at that time of night. Yet, Crowley wasn’t an idiot. If something was keeping Aziraphale away for  _ this _ long, and that same something was also the reason why Crowley couldn’t reach the angel, it  _ had _ to be something bad.

Which meant that the list of potential ‘somethings’ Aziraphale might need from him turned a whole lot darker than he was really entirely comfortable with.

London was, as London always is, still teeming with life despite the late hour. Groups wandered the street ranging in sobriety from startlingly sober to barely standing, while taxis clogged the rain-polished roads and bathed the late-night revellers with a too-bright glow from their headlights. For some, this was just the start of the night, stumbling from black cabs with whoops and cheers after an evening of pre-drinking to make the too-loud nightclub music more bearable. For others, the call of their beds was long overdue, and they slid with alcohol-soaked exhaustion into those same abandoned cabs to make the long trip home.

Crowley drove without thinking, without really seeing as his thoughts stalled and stuttered repeatedly over what he had already covered with single-minded dedication, a scratched record stuck on the same pain-bright chord. The Bentley purred at him with a familiar sort of reassurance and did most of the work without needing his input, his hands barely on the steering wheel for most of the drive back to his apartment.

Had he meant to come back here? Where  _ else _ would he go, really? He didn’t want company, though that also included his own, and the thought of sitting alone with a bottle of scotch made his skin itch. He found himself staring up at the severe building, all glass and hard lines and  _ modern _ and the opposite of everything he had ever tried to escape while simultaneously pulling it closer. Crowley took a moment to simply stand with his back against the warm side of his car and ground himself in the voiceless platitudes of metal against his spine. The rain had stopped some time before he had arrived home, though he couldn’t quite recall when, and he could feel the damp starting to soak into the fabric of his jacket and the seat of his jeans.

There was something in the air, something different, and Crowley knew it wasn’t anything good. He was already on edge, and as thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance, he felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. Something was  _ very wrong _ . It wasn’t his slowly building paranoia, he was fairly certain, and even without the anxiety thrumming through his veins leaving him on edge he was certain he would have noticed that something was amiss.

Glass doors shoved themselves open at his approach, wisely unwilling to stand between a demon and his goal. He took the stairs two at a time, unable and unwilling to stand in the elevator for the extra few seconds it would take him to reach the penthouse apartment he had added onto the building himself once construction had been mostly completed.

By the time he was half way, Crowley was breathing through his mouth, taste and smell assaulting him as he let his snake senses take over for a time. The flavour of copper was overwhelming, not-blood coating his tongue and throat in a sickly tang of unwanted taste. He could smell sulphur on the air, which only grew stronger the higher he climbed, until it was near enough overwhelming.

Nothing appeared to have changed, at least visually. Every step was as it should be, every door untouched and painfully  _ normal _ . His own front door was no different; dark and foreboding as it always was, as he had always intended for it to be. A deterrent. He could  _ feel _ the presence though, like a pressure in the air that even regular humans would struggle to miss. Part of him wanted to flee, to run from what he knew instinctively to be a danger he couldn’t hope to escape if he opened that door. He was unarmed, not that a weapon would make any difference against whatever was kicking out the sulphur-stink within his own private space. Whoever or whatever it was, it reeked of  _ power _ .

Crowley had never been a fighter. He could barely throw a punch, much less actually fight for his life if he needed to.

And yet, something held him there, fixed him in place without a single hope of running with his tail between his legs. Something  _ other _ , unrelated to the demonic entity residing in his apartment, a prince or archduke or another of the higher-ranking denizens of the underworld he didn’t care to know, but that power wasn’t alone. It was waiting for him,  _ they _ were waiting for him; the power and the  _ other _ .

What  _ was  _ it? Not demonic, not angelic either, just -  _ other _ . Crowley’s hand hovered at the lock and it clicked open without his bidding it to. He swallowed down his nerves, adjusted his sunglasses to hide the worry in his eyes, and stepped into the long dark of his hallway. He could hear the soft yet distinctive clink of ice against glass and little else, even his plants entirely motionless as he strode forwards, cautious. The door behind him closed, locked, and the sound of that bolt sliding into place seemed all too loud.

Aziraphale was missing and he was potentially walking to his death. Something had gone dreadfully, horribly wrong somewhere along the way.

“Crowley.” The man sprawled across his throne as though he owned it offered up a leer and the tilt of a half-filled whiskey glass as Crowley stepped into the room. One ridiculous crocodile-skin cowboy boot tapped a silent beat into the air from where it was suspended over the arm of the chair, and the demon beckoned him over.

“Agares.” Crowley hissed by way of reply, remaining where he was, keeping a safe distance between himself and the archduke. Not that any sort of distance could be considered particularly  _ safe _ wherever Asmodeus’ favourite torturer was concerned. “What do you want?”

“Now, now - my lad, is that really any way to speak to your  _ superior? _ ” Agares drew back too-thin lips in a sneer that was all sharp teeth and far too wide as he shifted to stand. The air, displaced by the demon’s movements, seemed to shift and cower, laced with the scent of spilled blood and rancid meat.

“Ah, well, no - maybe not.” He backpedalled quickly, and the animosity radiating from the archduke dropped a notch. Cowardly,  _ snake-like _ perhaps, but he still had  _ some _ self-preservation and there was no doubt in Crowley’s mind that he would be dead where he stood if Agares wished it. Going up against the likes of Hastur and Ligur was one thing, but they were small-fry compared to the demon crocodile of the pit. “But, if it’s all the same to you, I’d still like to know - why are you  _ here _ ?”

“Just-” Agares’ expression twisted to sick glee, a private joke that Crowley wasn’t certain he wanted in on. “-making a delivery. Heard you’d lost something.”

“ _ What? _ ” The temperature in the room  _ plummeted _ _,_ and Agares took two broad strides to stand rather too close for Crowley’s comfort, a black-tipped hand resting on his shoulder and  _ squeezing _ .

“Do have fun, m’boy.” It came out as more of a low growl, the warning snarl of an apex predator. Crowley froze in place as the crocodile fixed him with an unblinking stare, the jumbled mess of thoughts stripped away and replaced with a single, impossible to ignore  _ run _ _._ Agares stared him down for a long moment, and had Crowley been human his bladder may well have betrayed him, before stalking from the room with the spurs on his boots clicking against the tiled floor as he went.

The door slammed, his apartment fell into silence and Crowley released a shaky breath he hadn’t known he was holding. The room seemed too open, too exposed and far too bright. Each breath came quicker than it should, and he knew without finding a mirror to check that the white sclera of his eye had been entirely eclipsed by the yellow of his iris.

Stumbling slightly, legs turning jelly-like as the fear-induced adrenaline rush wore off all at once, Crowley made to drag himself into the familiar comfort of his throne before his knees could hit tile. He had barely reached out to right himself on the gilded back of the thing when he was reminded of the sight of Agares sprawling himself across the seat as though he owned the place.

The memory was enough to turn Crowley’s stomach.

His chair would need disinfecting - the whole apartment would, really, to try to rid it of the smell of death and decay. There was a wet smear of blood across the arm of the throne, clearly not his own and not likely to have come from Agares’ corporeal form either. Crowley wasn’t sure he wanted to know which poor bastard had been bled out that morning to give the archduke his kicks.

There wasn’t a noise, no noticeable movement, yet  _ something _ seemed to ping on the edge of Crowley’s consciousness. He took a breath and held it, waiting and listening to work out what had alerted him, nerves twitching with the barely suppressed flight reaction he had fought down some time earlier.  _ Something was there . _

Not Agares; his presence had long since faded, leaving only stench and memories in his wake. But there was something not quite-

The  _ other . _

The one he had sensed before, a non-mortal he could not quite place even with all of his senses on high alert -  _ hadn’t left with Agares _ . Another not-quite movement and Crowley realised he was picking up on  _ breathing _ . Irregular, half-remembered and not quite necessary, but warm and alive and bringing with it the scent of pain and filth.

_ Heard you’d lost something _ .

Crowley’s stomach twisted and he thought for a moment he might be sick. Everything seemed to go cold, fingers turning to ice, toes aching in his boots as all the blood drew back into his core. It was a battle to remain human, to keep from shifting into the serpent for the calm reassurance of scales and venom.

He had to be wrong,  _ had _ to be. Couldn’t comprehend the alternative because that thing he could feel just barely on the edge of his awareness, lungs shuddering and blood pumping and barely even  _ there _ , held none of the familiar angelic residue that spoke achingly of home in a way that could only ever hurt.

His shoes squeaked against the tiles, too loud and inelegant as Crowley stumbled towards the other. The trail was barely-there until he really looked for it, echoes of a half-dragged body forced from one end of the apartment to the other, leaving a smear of blood here and a rucked up rug there. 

The bedroom door was ajar when he reached it, and Crowley knew without looking that he wasn’t going to like whatever waited for him on the other side. He had left it pushed shut when he had left what felt like days ago but in truth was only a matter of hours, hiding the mess of covers he hadn’t bothered to straighten. Now, though, it sat open and mocking. He could  _ hear _ it now, the wet inhale of breath that wasn’t quite steady enough, wasn’t entirely present and which waited a few beats too long between each inhale.

It sounded painful.

Having watched enough horror films to colour his perception, and he might be amused by that at any other time under any other circumstances, he half expected the door to creak as he pushed it open. It didn’t, of course, moving silently until the gap was wide enough that he could see the bed and the broken form which looked to have been simply  _ left _ there, and as though it hadn’t moved itself since.

“Oh, no.” He stumbled forward, reaching the end of the bed and dragging himself up with the support of his arms as much as with the inelegant push of his feet against his bedroom carpet. “No no no no-” Blonde hair, once golden and curled and so cliche that it hurt to look at, matted with blood and half shaved. Clothing, collected over the past century and dutifully cared for by fond hands, cut through to the bone without a care for the flesh and blood in between.

Blue eyes, still so very blue even with the ache of years and the thrum of still-remembered torture floating within them, staring up at him. He had hoped to see recognition there, was terrified for a moment that there would be nothing but a soulless empty space between them. And he got it.

And, somehow, that was worse.


	5. Unblinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's taken me this long to post this - it's been an incredibly difficult chapter to write, I've scrapped quite a bit of it and re-written loads, and hopefully it now works to deliver the scene I wanted.
> 
> Honestly, this might be the most difficult thing I've ever written and it's left me in bits.

Inhale. Exhale. Pause. Crowley seemed rooted in place, staring down in horror at the mangled form of his best friend bleeding out upon the covers of his bed. The spread of crimson had been lost to the dark grey cotton, staining it darker still in a pool that seemed  _ too much _ for the angel’s too-small form.

He had never seen Aziraphale look so  _ fragile. _ So small, so close to the edge that it seemed it would take absolutely nothing at all to tip him over. He wanted to touch, wanted to withdraw, to pull Aziraphale to him and never let him go while simultaneously pushing him away to pretend none of this had ever happened. A juxtaposition of warring emotions that left him useless.

Instead, he remained frozen, taking in the myriad of injuries that peppered Aziraphale’s face, chest, arms, legs - too many to fathom, and he knew there were yet more he could  _ not _ see. They hadn’t bothered to remove his clothing before they started, and it hung from him in places where the seams had split or been cut open, where slashes across the fabric revealed damage so deep Crowley wasn’t certain it could be fixed.

Inhale. Exhale. Too long and too wet, and that in itself was proof enough that the damage internally was just as bad as the wounds he could see, if not worse. Aziraphale’s mouth hung open, nose broken and bent and bloody, rendered useless for anything save the pain it must be causing him.

Aziraphale hadn’t broken eye contact even once, the flicker of blue as he watched Crowley the only movement save for the occasional juddering rise and fall of his chest. There was familiarity there, laced with distrust, the two warring with one another in the angel’s gaze as he remained motionless upon the bed.

He blinked, the spell was broken and Crowley’s knees bit into the carpet as he landed.

_ “Shit!”  _ The demonic miracle was nothing, a not-quite-thought bringing what Crowley needed most in that moment into immediate reality. He couldn’t outright heal Aziraphale, they weren’t quite that compatible yet and he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk trying in case he made the whole thing worse, but bandages and a bowl of warm water appeared almost without him willing them to. “What did they do to you?” 

Reaching out to touch Aziraphale’s shoulder was perhaps not the best of ideas. Before his hand could make contact with the torn and bloodied fabric of what had once been a well-loved shirt, the angel jolted backwards with a hiss and a gurgle, eyes widening in fear and mouth moving around words that had no sound. Crowley whipped his hand back and stared in horror as Aziraphale writhed on the bed, trying to put some distance between them with limbs rendered close to useless.

“Sorry, I’m sorry!” He backpedalled to give the angel space he couldn’t manage to get for himself, knocking the bowl of water over and soaking the carpet. It soaked into the knees of his jeans, warm-to-cold too quickly against his skin, and it was almost one thing too many. For a single, ridiculous moment Crowley seriously thought he might burst into tears.

Except, Crowley didn’t cry.  _ Ever. _ He could count on one hand the number of times he had genuinely shed tears and still have fingers to spare - and that was including the personal hell he had suffered through in watching that bookshop burn. He swallowed down the ridiculous notion, willed fresh water back into now the mostly-empty bowl and waited for Aziraphale to grow still upon the bed.

“I’m not going to hurt you, angel, but I need to touch you to be able to help.” Inhale. Exhale. Rattling and wet and  _ fragile. _ No movement save for the flickering of Aziraphale’s eyes and the irregular expansion of his chest. Staring, always staring, and Crowley was starting to wonder if his friend was even present in there any more. “Please, let me help you.” He tried again, slowly this time, reaching out for the hand resting upon the sheets near to Aziraphale’s head. Fingers, thankfully mostly unscathed, twitched against the rumpled sheets but did not pull away.

They were cold beneath Crowley’s own. Cold, and too brittle, and they froze in place as soon as the brush of skin made itself known. Aziraphale’s gaze didn’t shift from his face even for a moment. Unnaturally focused, even as Crowley wrapped trembling fingers around the angel’s own still ones, hoping that some of his own warmth might seep into the hand that didn’t squeeze back. Shifting until they were almost palm against palm, three fingers curling into the gentle curve that held the smallest fragments of heat, Crowley let his thumb brush over the raised bumps of Aziraphale’s knuckles. They were dry yet soft, and felt somehow altogether wrong, memories of similar moments warring with the pain of a reality he didn’t quite know how to deal with.

When Aziraphale showed no indication that the contact between them bothered him, though the wary stare still did not waver, Crowley let his attention shift higher - up past a wrist, to a deep gouge in Aziraphale’s right forearm. Pushing the ruined fabric out of the way, wincing as the edges of the cotton shirt tugged a little where they had settled and dried into the scabbing blood from who knew how many days ago, Crowley set to work cleaning out the first - and seemingly smallest - of the open wounds.

It hadn’t reached bone, which was - well,  _ good, _ he supposed. As good as it could be, considering the circumstances.  _ Someone _ help him, how he wished he could simply heal the worst of the hurts and gather his angel into his arms, hold him until the worst had passed and Aziraphale was  _ whole _ once more.

Except, he couldn’t. And  _ this _ Aziraphale might not allow it anyway, with the way those distrustful blue eyes watched for every twitch, every flinch. Crowley  _ ached _ in the knowledge that the one person he actually cared for no longer trusted him - just what had they done to him, down there? How had hell managed to get their hands on a fully-functioning angel without losing enough of their number for it to be noticeable, anyway?

Agares was powerful, certainly, but Aziraphale was a principality. One of heaven’s strongest warriors. Had he chosen to take up his sword against hell during the apocalypse-that-wasn’t alongside the other principalities, there was no doubt in Crowley’s mind that enough of their number would have fallen that winning would have been near enough impossible. For all the other angels seemed to look down upon Aziraphale, and their treatment of him over the years, they feared him just as much as hell did.

Which was why they hadn’t forced him to Fall, as they had done with so many other lesser angels that stepped out of line. As they had with Crowley. They  _ couldn’t. _ Nor could they cut off his connection to the Host and his power, only the almighty herself could oust such a high-ranking angel by force, so how had hell managed where heaven had failed?

The first slash cleaned, though newly weeping and smeared red as the old blood and dirt was washed away, Crowley moved onto the next one. And the next. Hours passed, though he scarcely noticed, time sliding into one fluid stream of nothing as he worked around ruined fabric and an immobile patient for as long as he could. He wanted nothing more than to will the destroyed barrier of fabric away, but something stilled his hand - some sense that doing so would trigger a response from Aziraphale that he wasn’t equipped to deal with. Too-quick motions earned, at best, a full-body flinch, so how would he react to the instantaneous change caused by a miracle? It was best, for the moment, not to try. Some cuts were clean and shallow, taking very little effort and could be cleaned up in a matter of moments. Others were jagged and deep, down to the bone with the marks of  _ teeth _ and it was a wonder Aziraphale hadn’t lost a limb or two if Agares had decided to bring his other form out to play.

It was a wonder he had been released at  _ all,  _ really, and while there had to be a meaning behind that - and the message his enforced return was apparently supposed to signify - though Crowley hadn’t the mental fortitude to spare to work that one out just yet.

The deepest injuries wouldn’t heal on their own - in fact, there were a few  _ not _ so deep which looked as though they might struggle without proper treatment. At least, not without opening Aziraphale up to the possibility of an infection setting in, which - angel or not, he was badly hurt, and no amount of wishing it would prevent nature from taking its course on an already weakened corporeal form. He would need to worry about those later, gauze pads soaking up the worst of the newly-flowing blood, the white-to-crimson sickening in how quickly it seemed to spread.

Stitches. He would need stitches, and it would scar - Crowley wasn’t a doctor, hadn’t paid much attention to human medicine beyond an idle curiosity back in the eighteen-hundreds. Or, was it the seventeen hundreds? It had covered stitches, leeches, and cleaning infections out with alcohol - along with several other less pleasant procedures that he would really rather forget and had thankfully fallen out of favour in recent years. Hopefully it would give him the basics he would need as, short of ‘borrowing’ a doctor for a while and hoping that the clearly disturbed Aziraphale allowed an unknown human near him, he had little other choice.

Crowley’s second mistake - the first being his initial attempt to touch Aziraphale without asking beforehand, one which he wasn’t likely to repeat any time soon - was moving to clean the visible slash just above the angel’s hip. It sat perhaps a half inch above the bone, visible only due to the tattered state of Aziraphale’s shirt around that point, and curved over and around in a wicked arc up a good quarter of his back. It was a particularly nasty wound, the cloth miracled clean along with the water in the bowl and held at a logistically impossible temperature only a couple of degrees warmer than Aziraphale’s skin, making sure to remain in the angel’s line of sight as he leaned over the prone form. He had barely started, fabric just grazing the skin beneath the right shoulder blade, when Aziraphale reacted once more. Jerking, hissing, teeth bared and lips drawn back in an expression that was so contrary to everything Crowley knew of the other that he was stunned into inaction.

This was- this wasn’t  _ Aziraphale. _ For a long moment, Crowley wondered if perhaps this might be a  _ usurper, _ someone sent in Aziraphale’s place, a body-snatcher of the worst sort. Except, he knew that wasn’t right - couldn’t be right, not with a body that had been issued by the heavens themselves. Not when he could still  _ feel _ his angel within the confines of mortal flesh, even if it was faint.

Because the more he reached out, felt his way around the wounded body of his best friend huddled on his bed, the more he found Aziraphale. He felt  _ different,  _ but it was still unmistakably him.

Aziraphale growled at him, the sound feral and broken. He was still in there, but his mind wasn’t - closed off by whatever Agares had done to him, shattered into pieces that Crowley wasn’t sure how to piece back together. Something inside Crowley broke with that sound.

“Oh angel.” Crowley let himself feel, let himself feel  _ too much, _ and Aziraphale flinched slightly at the warm splash against his exposed hip. There was no point trying any further, and who else would see save the one person he had stopped hiding himself from too many years ago? And why did it matter, anyway? Crowley didn’t cry, except for where Aziraphale was concerned, and blue eyes tracked each sluggish tear down angled cheeks as though they were a fascination he couldn’t quite comprehend.

**Author's Note:**

> I FORGOT TO SAY - I have a discord chat room now - https://discord.gg/vaANQ6A
> 
> It's very quiet still, but come join me!


End file.
